You Are (Cough) What You Eat

Trey Smith

Environmental and consumer groups have condemned the US Food and Drug Administration's move to renege on its long-held policy to regulate the use of human antibiotics in animal feed.

Last week, the agency quietly announced it was withdrawing its plan to limit the use of antibiotics fed to healthy livestock intended for human consumption.

Critics say the U-turn, which comes amid the FDA's own stated concerns over food safety, is at odds with its obligations to protect the public.

The groups also criticised the timing of the announcement, which was made during the holiday season and disclosed only in the federal register.

The use of low doses of antibiotics in agricultural animal feed contributes to drug-resistant superbugs, according to food and health experts.

One leading food policy writer described the policy reversal as "pathetic" and "dismaying."

"It's dismaying, and obviously something they felt sheepish about, otherwise it wouldn't have been released this week," Michael Pollan, author of the Onmivore's Dilemma and Food Rules: An Eater's Manual, told the Guardian.

"When Margaret Hamburg became the head of the FDA, she indicated this was a high priority for them and that she realised how much of a problem the profligate use of antibiotics was. She said she was going to treat this issue as if her hair was on fire. This isn't the way someone acts when their hair is on fire."

Pollan said there was "no question" that meat could be produced without human antibiotics, as the EU has already banned them.
~ from FDA Draws Criticism After U-Turn on Antibiotics in Animal Feed by Karen McVeigh ~

Isn't it just grand seeing another industry write its own rules? The meat industry didn't like all those expensive mandates, so they've "convinced" an agency -- whose prime objective is to protect citizens -- to allow the industry voluntarily to police itself!

What a marvelous idea. It has worked so well with Wall Street!!! Why not the meat industry too?